1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a stent.
2. Description of the Related Art
A stent is a medico-technical device which is inserted and guided to restricted portions of body vessels or body orifices and in its expanded state expands and keeps expanded the restricted portion at such a place. To this end, a stent must be extremely flexible in its non-expanded state so that upon introduction into the body vessels it can easily follow the windings of said vessels. Furthermore, the stent in its expanded state must be sufficiently stable to maintain the desired degree of expansion.
Although the generic stent (DE 296 08 037.1) already meets these requirements in a satisfactory manner, a further improvement of the stent characteristics is in principle desirable.
It is therefore the object of the present invention to provide a stent comprising a tubular, flexible body whose wall has a web structure, whose characteristics regarding flexibility in the non-expanded state and dimensional stability in the expanded state are further improved.